Choni, my dear friend! So lovely to hear from you again! I have not read it — is there a good translation in English you could recommend? I actually attempted to friend you via facebook, but there are about 100 Chonis, none of which look at all like a Chef🙂

I would be very interested to hear your thoughts regarding my recent “4 rivers” piece — particularly with respect to the four realms within Kabbalic thought.

I was re-reading the Zohar recently on the various punishments for Samael as a means of unifying the name of God. I will ask you about this anon, no doubt🙂

I somehow was not alerted to your response. It’s been well over a year. I ask forgiveness. You’ve seem to have gone through some spiritual evolution between April 2010 and now. However, by the Creator everything’s in the right time. Today, you can simply google “Duties of the Heart” and many Jewish and secular book dealers are selling a now popular two volume set with facing English translation. The only drawback of this translation is that it’s a translation of a translation. The work was originally written in Medieval Andelusia in Arabic by Rabbi Bachya Ibn Pekuda. It was soon after masterfully translated into Hebrew by Yehuda Ibn Tibbon. Through this translation it became available to a wider Jewish audience. It’s a work of Jewish religious piety, mostly about refining the heart to serve G-d. There’s an older English translation (circa 1960s) which I really prefer because it had at least worked with the Arabic original. However, I did not see it on-line. It’s eclipsed by the newer version. Yet, if you were to visit a large public library or a synagogue library you’d probably find it. It has a pale (jade) green cover. There’s tantilizing speculation that Rabbi Bachya Ibn Pekuda may have been a Jewish version of a Sufi. I don’t know enough to tell one way or the other.